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Escape from Paradise, – Now being made into a movie!

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The book’s sensational reviews!

“It took me two and a half evenings to complete your un-put-downable book…it is a unique contribution to the appreciation of a life in Singapore. Thank you for having written it.”C. V. Devan Nair, former President of Singapore.

“Bought the book from Select this weekend and can’t put it down! It’s a great read! And so nostalgic for me—the good old days!” Glen Goei, writer and director of the Miramax film That’s the Way I Like It and who played the title role opposite Anthony Hopkins in the London production of M. Butterfly. Mr. Goei’s latest film isThe Blue Mansion – Click for the trailer!

“It is a remarkable story and so full of intrigue that it reads at times like fiction.” Jonathan Burnham, Editor in Chief & President, Talk Miramax Books.

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ThunderBall Films is successfully putting together the movie production of Escape from Paradise and has received a new LOI (Letter of Intent) from actress Bai Ling who starred with Richard Gere in the film Red Cross.

This includes a commitment from a CPA firm who does tax credit financing in Ireland, a possible location to film, as part of the package needed for investors – along with the CPA firm’s commitment to apply for and finance the tax credits if ThunderBall does shoot in Ireland and what portion of the budget they would provide.
For inquiries, please contact John Harding at jbharding@gmail.com.

Pam Bondi Defense Argument

Pam Bondi: (00:00)
Senators, members of the Senate. When the house managers gave you their presentation, when their submitted their brief, they repeatedly referenced Hunter Biden and Burisma. They spoke to you for over 21 hours and they referenced Biden or Burisma over 400 times and when they gave these presentations, they said there was nothing, nothing to see. It was a sham. This is fiction. In their trial memorandum the house managers describe this as baseless. Now, why did they say that? Why did they invoke Biden or Burisma over 400 times?

Pam Bondi: (01:02)
The reason they needed to do that is because they are here saying that the president must be impeached and removed from office for raising a concern and that’s why we have to talk about this today. They say sham, they say baseless because they say this because if it’s okay for someone to say, “Hey, you know what? Maybe there’s something here worth raising.” Then their case crumbles because they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no basis to raise this concern, but that’s not what public records show.

Pam Bondi: (01:49)
Here are just a few of the public sources that flagged questions surrounding this very same issue. The United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office, deputy assistant secretary of state, George Kent. Hunter Biden’s former business associate and ABC white house reporter. Good morning America, ABC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Ukrainian Law Enforcement, and the Obama State Department itself. They all raised this issue. We would prefer not to be talking about this. We would prefer not to be discussing this, but the house managers have placed this squarely at issue, so we must address it.

Pam Bondi: (02:47)
Let’s look at the facts. In early 2014 Joe Biden, our vice president of the United States, led the United States foreign policy in Ukraine with the goal of rooting out corruption. According to an annual study published by Transparency International, during this time, Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the entire world. In Ukraine, there’s a natural gas company called Burisma. Burisma has been owned by an oligarch named Mykola Zlochevsky.

Pam Bondi: (03:22)
Here’s what happened very shortly after vice president Biden was made US point man for Ukraine. His son, Hunter Biden ends up on the board of Burisma working for and paid by the oligarch Zlochevsky. In February 2014 in the wake of anti-corruption uprising by the people of Ukraine, Zlochevsky flees the country fleas, Ukraine. Zlochevsky the oligarch is well known. George Kent, the very first witness that the Democrats called during their public hearings testified. So Zlochevsky stood out for his self dealings even among other oligarchs. House managers didn’t tell you that.

Pam Bondi: (04:17)
Ambassador Kurt Volker explained that Burisma had a “very bad reputation as a company for corruption and money laundering.” House managers didn’t tell you that. Burisma was so corrupt that George Kent said he intervened to prevent USAID from cosponsoring an event with Burisma. Do you know what this event was? It was a child contest and the prize was a camera. They were so bad, Burisma that our country wouldn’t even co-sponsor a children’s event with Burisma.

Pam Bondi: (05:07)
In March 2014 the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office opened some money laundering investigation into the oligarch Zlochevsky and his company Burisma. The very next month, April 2014 according to a public report, Hunter Biden quietly joins the board of Burisma. Remember early 2014 was when vice president Biden began leading Ukraine policy. Here’s how Hunter Biden came to join Burisma’s board in April 2014. He was brought on the board by Devon Archer, his business partner, Devon Archer was college roommates with Chris Heinz, stepson of secretary of state, John Kerry.

Pam Bondi: (05:54)
All three men, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, and Chris Heinz had all started an investment firm together. Public records show that April 16th, 2014 Devon Archer meets with vice president Biden at the white house. Just two days later, on April 18th, 2014 is when Hunter Biden quietly joins Burisma according to public reporting. Remember, this is just one month after the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office open a money laundering case into Burisma, Hunter Biden joins their board. And not only 10 days after Hunter Biden joins the board, British authorities seizes $23 million in British bank accounts connected to the oligarch Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma.

Pam Bondi: (06:57)
Did Hunter Biden leave the board then? No. The British authorities also announced that it had started a criminal investigation into potential money laundering. Did Hunter Biden leave the board? No. What happened was then only then did the company choose to announce that Hunter Biden had joined the board after the assets of Burisma and its oligarch owners Zlochevsky were frozen and a criminal investigation had begun.

Pam Bondi: (07:38)
Hunter Biden’s decision to join Burisma raised flags almost immediately. One article from May, 2014 stated the appointment of Joe Biden’s son to the board of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma has raised eyebrows the world over. Even an outlet with bias for Democrats pointed out Hunter Biden’s activities created a conflict of interest for Joe Biden. The article stated the move raises questions about a potential conflict of interest for Joe Biden.

Pam Bondi: (08:20)
Now even Chris Heinz, Hunter Biden’s own business partner had grave concerns. He thought that working with Burisma was unacceptable. This is Chris Heinz. He was worried about the corruption, the geopolitical risk and how bad it would look. So he wisely distances himself from Hunter Biden and Devon Archer’s appointments to Burisma. He didn’t simply call his step-father secretary-of-state and say, “I have a problem with this.” He didn’t tell his friends, “Hey guys, I’m not getting on the board. I want nothing to do with this.” He went so far as to send an email to senior state department officials about this issue. This Chris Heinz?

Pam Bondi: (09:17)
He wrote, apparently Devon and Hunter have joined the board of Burisma and a press release went out today. I can’t speak to why they decided to, but there is no investment by our firm in their company. What did Hunter Biden do? He stayed on the board. What did Chris Heinz do? He subsequently stopped doing business with his college roommate, Devon Archer and his friend Hunter Biden. Chris Heinz spokesperson said the lack of judgment in this matter was a major catalyst for Mr. Heinz ending his business relationship with Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden. Now the media also noticed the same day and ABC news reporter ask Obama White House press secretary Jay Carney about it. Here’s what happened.

Speaker 1: (10:14)
Hunter Biden has now taken a position with the largest oil and gas holding company in Ukraine. Is there any concern about at least the appearance of a conflict there? The vice president’s son taking-

Jay Carney: (10:28)
I would refer you to the vice president’s office. I saw those reports. Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens and where they work does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the vice president or president. But I would refer you to the vice president’s office.

Pam Bondi: (10:52)
The next day the Washington Post ran a story about it. It said, the appointment of the vice president’s son to a Ukrainian oil board look…

Pam Bondi: (11:03)
… Of the vice president’s son to a Ukrainian oil board looks nepotistic at best, nefarious at worst.” Again, “The appointment of the vice president’s son to a Ukrainian oil board looks nepotistic at best, nefarious at worst.” And the media didn’t stop questioning asking questions here. It kept going, here’s ABC.

Joe Biden: (11:27)
You have to fight the cancer of corruption.

Speaker 2: (11:32)
But then something strange happened. Just three weeks later, a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, accused of corruption appoints hunter Biden, seen here in their promotional videos, to their board of directors, paying his firm more than a million dollars a year.

Pam Bondi: (11:52)
Here’s more from ABC. Continued on.

Speaker 2: (11:55)
Ukraine wasn’t the only country where Hunter Biden’s business and his father’s diplomacy as vice president intersected. It also happened in China.

Speaker 2: (12:03)
This video shows Chinese diplomats greeting Vice President Biden as you arrived in Beijing in December of 2013. Right by his side? His son, Hunter. Less than two weeks later, Hunter’s firm had new business, creating an investment fund in China involving the government controlled bank of China with reports they hoped to raise one $1.5 Billion.

Pam Bondi: (12:29)
In fact, every witness who was asked about Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma agreed there was a potential appearance of a conflict of interest. Multiple house Democrat witnesses, including those from the Department of State, the National Security Council, and others unanimously testified there was a potential appearance of a conflict of interest. These were their witnesses.

Pam Bondi: (13:03)
How much money did Hunter Biden get for being on the board? Well, you start looking at this bank records. According to reports, between April, 2014 and October, 2015, Burisma paid more than $3.1 million to Devin Archer and Hunter Biden. That’s over the course of a year and a half. How do we know this? Some of Devin Archer’s bank records were disclosed during an unrelated federal criminal case, having nothing to do with Hunter Biden. These bank records show 17 months that Burisma wired two payments of $83,333, not just for one month, for two months, for three months, but for 17 months. According to Reuters, sources report that of the two payments of $83,333 each, one was for a Hunter Biden and one Devin Archer.

Pam Bondi: (14:09)
Now, Hunter Biden was paid significantly more than board members for major US Fortune 100 companies such as Goldman Sachs, Comcast, Citigroup. The typical board member of these Fortune 100 companies … We know they’re titans of their industry, they’re highly qualified, and as such, they’re well compensated. Even so, Hunter Biden was paid significantly more. This is how well he was compensated. Hunter Biden is paid over $83,000 a month while the average American family of four during that time, each year made less than $54,000, and that’s according to US Census Bureau during that time.

Pam Bondi: (15:06)
And this is what’s been reported about his work on the board. The Washington post said, “What specific duties Hunter Biden carried out for Burisma are not fully known.” The New Yorker reported, “Once or twice a year, he attended Burisma board meetings and energy forums that took place in Europe.” When speaking with ABC News about his qualifications to be on Burisma’s board, Hunter Biden didn’t point to any of the usual qualifications of a board member. Hunter Biden and had no experience in natural gas, no experience in the energy sector, no experience with Ukrainian regulatory affairs. As far as we know, he doesn’t speak Ukrainian. So, naturally, the media has asked questions about his board membership. Why was Hunter Biden on this board?

Pam Bondi: (16:02)
If your last name wasn’t Biden, do you think you would have been asked to be on the board of Burisma?

Hunter Biden: (16:07)
I don’t know. I don’t know, probably not.

Pam Bondi: (16:11)
So, let’s go back and talk about his time on the board. Remember he joined Burisma’s board April, 2014, while the United Kingdom had an open money laundering case against Burisma and its owner, the oligarch Zlochevsky. On August 20th, 2014, four months later, the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office initiates a money laundering investigation into the same oligarch, Zlochevsky. This is one of 15 investigations into Burisma and Zlochevsky.

Pam Bondi: (16:48)
According to a recent public statement made by the current prosecutor general, on January 16, 2015, prosecutors put Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, on whose Hunter Biden sat on his board, on the country’s wanted list for fraud, while Hunter Biden’s on the board. Then a British court orders Zlochevsky’s $23 million in assets be unfrozen. Why was the money unfrozen? Deputy Assistant Secretary Kent testified to it.

Jay Carney: (17:29)
Somebody in the general prosecutor’s office of Ukraine shut the case, issued a letter to his lawyer, and that money went poof.

Pam Bondi: (17:44)
He also testified that the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office’s actions led to the unfreezing of the assets. After George Kent’s confirmation, that prosecutor was out. Victor Shokin becomes the prosecutor general. This is the prosecutor that you’ll hear about later, the one that Vice President Biden has publicly said he wanted out of office. In addition to flagging questions about previous prosecutor’s actions, George Kent also specifically voiced other concerns, this time to the vice president’s office about Hunter Biden. In February, 2015, he raised concerns about Hunter Biden to Vice President Biden’s office.

Jay Carney: (18:32)
In a briefing call with the national security staff of the office of the vice president in February of 2015, I raised my concern that Hunter Biden’s status as a board member could create the perception of a conflict of interest.

Pam Bondi: (18:46)
But House managers didn’t tell you that. This is all while Hunter Biden’s sat on Burisma’s board. Did Hunter Biden stop working for Burisma? No. Did Vice President Biden stop leading the Obama administration’s foreign policy efforts in Ukraine? No. In the meantime, Vice President Biden is still at the forefront of the US Ukraine policy. He pledges $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine contingent on its progress in rooting out corruption. Around the same time with the $1 billion announcement, other people raised the issue of a conflict. As special Obama administration special envoy for energy policy told the New Yorker, it raised Hunter Biden’s participation on the board of Burisma. He raised it directly with the vice president himself. This is a special Envoy to president Obama, and the media had questions too. December 8, 2015, the New York Times publishes an article that Prosecutor General Shokin was investigating Burisma and its owner, Zlochevsky. The Times report, here’s their quote. “The credibility of the vice president’s anti-corruption message may have been undermined by the association of his son, Hunter Biden,” with Barisma and its owner, Zlochevsky.

Pam Bondi: (20:24)
And it wasn’t just one reporter who asked questions about the line between Burisma and the Obama administration. As we learned recently through reporting on Fox news, on January 19th, 2016, there was a meeting between Obama administration officials and Ukrainian prosecutors. Ken Vogel, journalist for the New York Times, asked the State Department about this meeting. He wanted more information about the meeting, “where US support for prosecutions of Burisma holdings in the United Kingdom in Ukraine were discussed,” but the story never ran.

Pam Bondi: (21:07)
Around the time of the reported story, January, 2016, meeting between the Obama administration and Ukrainian officials took place according to a Ukrainian press report, as translated says. “The US Department of State made it clear to the Ukrainian authorities that it was linking the $1 billion in loan guarantees to the dismissal of prosecutor general Victor Shokin.”

Pam Bondi: (21:39)
Now, we all know from the Obama administration and from the words of Vice President Biden himself, he advocated for the prosecutor general’s dismissal. There was ongoing investigation into the oligarch, Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, at the time. We know this because on February 2nd, 2016, the Ukrainian …

Pam Bondi: (22:03)
… 2, 2016, the Ukrainian prosecutor general obtained a renewal of a court order to seize the Ukrainian oligarch’s assets. A Kiev Post article published on February 4th, 2016 says, the oligarch Zlochevsky is, quote, suspected of committing a criminal offense of elicit enrichment, end quote. Over the next few weeks, the vice president had multiple calls with Ukraine’s President Poroshenko. Days after the last call on February 4th … 24th, 2016, a D.C. consultant reached out to the State Department to request a meeting to discuss Burisma. We know what she said because the email was released under the Freedom Of Information Act. The consultant explicitly invoked Hunter Biden’s name as a board member. In an email summarizing the call, the State Department official says that the consultant quote, noted that two high profile citizens are affiliated with the company, including Hunter Biden as a board member, end quote. She added that the consultant would, quote like to talk with Under Secretary Of State Novelli about getting a better understanding of how the U.S. Came to the determination that the country is corrupt, end quote.

Pam Bondi: (23:28)
To be clear, this email documents that the U.S. government had determined Burisma to be corrupt. And the consultant was seeking a meeting with an extremely senior State Department official to discuss the U.S. government’s position. Her pitch for the meeting specifically used Hunter Biden’s name, and according to the email, the meeting was set for a few days later. And later that month, on March 29th, 2016, the Ukrainian parliament finally votes to fire the prosecutor general. This is the prosecutor general investigating the oligarch, owner of Burisma, on whose board Hunter Biden sat. Two days after the prosecutor general is voted out, Vice President Biden announces that the U.S. will provide $335 million in security assistance to Ukraine. He soon announces that the U.S. will provide one billion dollars in loan guarantees to Ukraine. Now let’s talk about one of the Democrat’s central witnesses, Ambassador Yovanovitch. In May 2016, Ambassador Yovanovitch was nominated to be Ambassador in Ukraine. Here’s what happened when she was preparing for her Senate confirmation hearing.

John Ratcliffe: (24:49)
Congresswoman Stefanik had asked you how the Obama, Biden State Department had prepared you to answer questions about Burisma and Hunter Biden specifically, you recall that?

Amb Yovanovitch: (25:02)
Yes.

John Ratcliffe: (25:03)
Out of thousands of companies in the Ukraine, the only one that you recall, the Obama, Biden State Department prepared you to answer questions about was the one where the vice president’s son was on the board, is that fair?

Amb Yovanovitch: (25:15)
Yes.

Pam Bondi: (25:20)
So she’s being prepared to come before all of you, all of you, and talk about world issues, I’m going to be in charge of the Ukraine, and what did they feel the only company, the company that it was important to brief her on in case she got a question, Burisma. Ambassador Yovanovitch was confirmed July, 2016 as the Obama administration was coming to a close. In September, 2016, a Ukrainian court cancels the oligarch Zlochevsky arrest warrant for lack of progress in the case. In mid January, 2017, Burisma announces that all legal proceedings against it and Zlochevsky have been closed. Both of these things happened while Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma. Around this time, Vice President Biden leaves office. Years later now, former Vice President Biden, publicly details what we know happened. His threat to withhold more than a billion dollars in loan guarantees unless Shokin was fired. Here’s the vice president.

Jay Carney: (26:35)
I said, I’m not going to, or we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, “You have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said …” I said, “Call him.” I said, “I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.” I said, “You’re not getting a billion, I’m going to be leaving here.” And I think it was what, six hours. I looked and I said, “I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money.” Well, son of a bitch. He got fired and they put in place someone who was solid at the time.

Pam Bondi: (27:06)
What he didn’t say on that video, according to the New York Times, this was the prosecutor investigating Burisma, Shokin. What he also didn’t say on the video was that his son was being paid significant amounts by the oligarch, owner of Burisma, to sit on that board. Only then does Hunter Biden leave the board, he stays on the board until April, 2019. Now in November, 2019, Hunter Biden signs an affidavit saying quote, he’s been unemployed and has no other monthly income since May, 2019. This was in November of 2019, so we know from after April, 2019 to May, 2019 through November, 2019, he was unemployed by his own statement.

Pam Bondi: (28:17)
April, 2019 to November, 2019, despite his resignation from the board, the media has continued to raise the issue relating to a potential conflict of interest. On July 22nd, 2019, The Washington Post wrote, the fired prosecutor general Shokin quote, believes his ouster was because of his interest in the company, end quote, referring to Burisma. The Post further wrote that, quote, had he remained in his post, he would have questioned Hunter Biden. On July 25th, 2019, three days later, President Trump speaks with President Zelensky. He says, “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with this attorney general would be great.” Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution said, “If you can look into it. It looks horrible to me, end quote. The House managers talked about the Bidens or Burisma 400 times, but they never gave you the full picture.

Pam Bondi: (29:39)
But here are those who did. The United Kingdom serious fraud unit, Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State, George Kent. Chris Heinz, the ABC White House reporter, ABC, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ukrainian law enforcement and the Obama State Department itself. They all thought there was cause to raise the issue about the Bidens and Burisma. Now the House managers might say without evidence that everything we just have said has been debunked. That the evidence points entirely and unequivocally in the other direction. That is a distraction. You’ve heard from the House managers, they do not believe that there was any concern to raise here, that all of this was baseless and all we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue, and that is enough. I yield my time.

This is about how five members of Joe Biden’s family got rich through his connections.

Political figures have long used their families to route power and benefits for their own self-enrichment. Inthe new book, “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite,” one particular politician — Joe Biden — emerges as the king of the sweetheart deal, with no less than five family members benefiting from his largess, favorable access and powerful position for commercial gain. In Biden’s case, these deals include foreign partners and, in some cases, even U.S. taxpayer dollars.

The Biden family’s apparent self-enrichment involves no less than five family members: Joe’s son Hunter, son-in-law Howard, brothers James and Frank, and sister Valerie.

When this subject came up in 2019, Biden declared, “I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else — even distant family — about their business interests. Period.”

James Biden

Joe Biden’s younger brother, James Biden, has been an integral part of the family political machine from the earliest days when he served as finance chair of Joe’s 1972 Senate campaign, and the two have remained quite close. After Joe joined the U.S. Senate, he would bring his brother James along on congressional delegation trips to places like Ireland, Rome and Africa.

When Joe became vice president, James was a welcomed guest at the White House, securing invitations to such important functions as a state dinner in 2011 and the visit of Pope Francis in 2015. Sometimes, James’ White House visits dovetailed with his overseas business dealings, and his commercial opportunities flourished during his brother’s tenure as vice president.

Consider the case of HillStone International, a subsidiary of the huge construction management firm, Hill International. The president of HillStone International was Kevin Justice, who grew up in Delaware and was a longtime Biden family friend. On November 4, 2010, according to White House visitors’ logs, Justice visited the White House and met with Biden adviser Michele Smith in the Office of the Vice President.

Less than three weeks later, HillStone announced that James Biden would be joining the firm as an executive vice president. James appeared to have little or no background in housing construction, but that did not seem to matter to HillStone. His bio on the company’s website noted his “40 years of experience dealing with principals in business, political, legal and financial circles across the nation and internationally…” Interesting!

James Biden was joining HillStone just as the firm was starting negotiations to win a massive contract in war-torn Iraq. Six months later, the firm announced a contract to build 100,000 homes. It was part of a $35 billion, 500,000-unit project deal won by TRAC Development, a South Korean company. HillStone also received a $22 million U.S. federal government contract to manage a construction project for the State Department.

David Richter, son of the parent company’s founder, was not shy in explaining HillStone’s success in securing government contracts. It really helps, he told investors at a private meeting, to have “the brother of the vice president as a partner,” according to someone who was there.

The Iraq project was massive, perhaps the single most lucrative project for the firm ever. In 2012, Charlie Gasparino of Fox Business reported that HillStone officials expected the project to “generate $1.5 billion in revenues over the next three years.” That amounted to more than three times the revenue the company produced in 2011.

A group of minority partners, including James Biden, stood to split about $735 million. “There’s plenty of money for everyone if this project goes through,” said one company official.

The deal was all set, but HillStone made a crucial error. In 2013, the firm was forced to back out of the contract because of a series of problems, including a lack of experience by Hill and TRAC Development, its South Korean associate firm. But HillStone continued doing significant contract work in the embattled country, including a six-year contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

James Biden remained with Hill International, which accumulated contracts from the federal government for dozens of projects, including projects in the United States, Puerto Rico, Mozambique, and elsewhere.

Hunter Biden

With the election of his father as vice president, Hunter Biden launched businesses fused to his father’s power that led him to lucrative deals with a rogue’s gallery of governments and oligarchs around the world. Sometimes he would hitch a prominent ride with his father aboard Air Force Two to visit a country where he was courting business. Other times, the deals would be done more discreetly. Always they involved foreign entities that appeared to be seeking something from his father.

There was, for example, Hunter’s involvement with an entity called Burnham Financial Group, where his business partner Devon Archer — who’d been at Yale with Hunter — sat on the board of directors. Burnham became the vehicle for a number of murky deals abroad, involving connected oligarchs in Kazakhstan and state-owned businesses in China.

But one of the most troubling Burnham ventures was here in the United States, in which Burnham became the center of a federal investigation involving a $60 million fraud scheme against one of the poorest Indian tribes in America, the Oglala Sioux.

Devon Archer was arrested in New York in May 2016 and charged with “orchestrating a scheme to defraud investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars.” Other victims of the fraud included several public and union pension plans. Although Hunter Biden was not charged in the case, his fingerprints were all over Burnham. The “legitimacy” that his name and political status as the vice president’s son lent to the plan was brought up repeatedly in the trial.

The scheme was explicitly designed to target pension funds that had “socially responsible investing” clauses, including pension funds of labor union organizations that had publicly supported Joe Biden’s political campaigns in the past. Indeed, eight of the eleven pension funds that lost their money were either government employee or labor union pension funds. Joe Biden has “a long-standing alliance with labor.” He closely identifies with organized labor. “I make no apologies,” he has said. “I am a union man, period.” And many public unions have endorsed him over the years.

Transcripts from Devon Archer’s trial offer a clearer picture of Hunter Biden’s role at Burnham Asset Management, in particular, the fact that the firm relied on his father’s name and political status as a means of both recruiting pension money into the scheme and alleviating investors’ concerns.

Tim Anderson, a lawyer who did legal work on the issuance of the tribal bonds, recounts seeing Hunter while visiting the Burnham office in New York City to meet with Bevan Cooney, who was later convicted in the case.

The political ties that Biden and Archer had were considered key to the Burnham brand. As stated in an August 2014 email, Jason Galanis, who was convicted in the bond scheme, agreed with an unidentified associate who also thought the company had “value beyond capital” because of their political connections.

In the closing arguments at the trial, one of Devon Archer’s defense attorneys, Matthew Schwartz, explained to the jury that it was impossible to talk about the bond scheme without mentioning Hunter Biden’s name. This “was perfectly sensible,” according to Schwartz, “because Hunter Biden was part of the Burnham team.”

Many have criticized Joe Biden’s son Hunter for the perception that he profited off of his family name. He made headlines when it was discovered that despite his inexperience, he was earning at least $50,000 a month to serve on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas firm while his father was vice president. Joe Biden has complained that the criticism of his son on the issue is unfounded.

Hunter Biden has said that it was “poor judgment” to take the position.

“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part,” Biden told ABC News. “I know that there was — did nothing wrong at all. However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is a, it’s a swamp in many ways? Yeah. And so, I take full responsibility for that.”

Despite the “poor judgment,” Hunter said he does not regret his decision to work at Burisma.

“I don’t regret being on the board. What I regret is not taking into account that there would be a Rudy Giuliani and a president of the United States that would be listening to this ridiculous conspiracy idea, which has, again, been completely debunked by everyone.”

Ashley Biden – Joe Biden’s daughter

It would be a dream for any new company to announce their launch in the Oval Office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

StartUp Health is an investment consultancy based out of New York City, and in June 2011 the company barely had a website. The firm was the brainchild of three siblings from Philadelphia. Steven Krein is CEO and co-founder, while his brother, Dr. Howard Krein, serves as chief medical officer. Sister Bari serves as the firm’s chief strategy officer. A friend named Unity Stoakes is a co-founder and serves as president.

StartUp Health was barely up and running when, in June 2011, two of the company’s executives were ushered into the Oval Office of the White House. They met with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

The following day the new company would be featured at a large health care tech conference being run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and StartUp Health executives became regular visitors to the White House, attending events in 2011, 2014 and 2015.

How did StartUp Health gain access to the highest levels of power in Washington? There was nothing particularly unique about the company, but for this:

“I happened to be talking to my father-in-law that day and I mentioned Steve and Unity were down there [in Washington, D.C.],” recalled Howard Krein. “He knew about StartUp Health and was a big fan of it. He asked for Steve’s number and said, ‘I have to get them up here to talk with Barack.’ The Secret Service came and got Steve and Unity and brought them to the Oval Office.”

StartUp Health offers to provide new companies technical and relationship advice in exchange for a stake in the business. Demonstrating and highlighting the fact that you can score a meeting with the president of the United States certainly helps prove a strategic company asset: high-level contacts.

Vice President Joe Biden continued to help Krein promote his company at several appearances through his last months in the White House, including one in January 2017, where he made a surprise showing at the StartUp Health Festival in San Francisco. The corporate event, open only to StartUp Health members, enabled the 250 people in attendance to chat in a closed session with the vice president.

Frank Biden – Joe Biden’s brother

In late March 2009, Vice President Joe Biden landed in Costa Rica aboard Air Force Two, and went to the Costa Rican presidential palace for a one-on-one with President Oscar Arias. The Biden visit had symbolic significance. The last time a high-ranking American official had visited the country was back in 1997, when Bill Clinton had come.

Joe Biden’s trip to Costa Rica came at a fortuitous time for his brother Frank, who was busy working deals in the country. Just months after Vice President Biden’s visit, in August, Costa Rica News announced a new multilateral partnership “to reform Real Estate in Latin America” between Frank Biden, a developer named Craig Williamson, and the Guanacaste Country Club, a newly planned resort. The partnership, which appears to be ongoing, was wrapped in a beautiful package as a “call on resources available to the companies and individuals to reform the social, economic and environmental practices of real estate developers across the world by example.”

In real terms, Frank’s dream was to build in the jungles of Costa Rica thousands of homes, a world-class golf course, casinos, and an anti-aging center. The Costa Rican government was eager to cooperate with the vice president’s brother.

As it happened, Joe Biden had been asked by President Obama to act as the Administration’s point man in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Frank’s vision for a country club in Costa Rica received support from the highest levels of the Costa Rican government— despite his lack of experience in building such developments. He met with the Costa Rican ministers of education and energy and environment, as well as the president of the country.

On October 4, 2016, the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education signed a letter of intent with Frank’s company, Sun Fund Americas. The project involved allowing a company called GoSolar to operate solar power facilities in Costa Rica. The previous year, the Obama-Biden administration’s OPIC had authorized a $6.5 million taxpayer-backed loan for the project.

In June 2014, Vice President Joe Biden announced the launch of the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CESI). The program called for increasing access to financing for Caribbean energy projects that he strongly supported. American taxpayer dollars were dedicated to facilitating deals that matched U.S. government financing with local energy projects in Caribbean countries, including Jamaica. In January 2015, USAID announced that it would be spending $10 million to boost renewable energy projects in Jamaica over the next five years.

After Joe Biden brought together leaders for CESI, brother Frank’s firm Sun Fund Americas announced that it was “engaged in projects and is in negotiations with governments of other countries in the [Caribbean] region for both its Solar and Waste to Energy development services.” As if to push the idea along, the Obama administration’s OPIC provided a $47.5 million loan to support the construction of a 20-megawatt solar facility in Clarendon, Jamaica.

Frank Biden’s Sun Fund Americas later announced that it had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) to build a 20-megawatt solar facility in Jamaica.

Frank Biden has allegedly used his family name to further his career and secure business contracts in Florida.

After Joe Biden became vice president, Frank leveraged D.C. connections to secure contracts from Florida officials benefiting a charter school that he ran, according to ABC News.

The younger Biden was not shy about the perks of his famous last name and even boasted about it during interviews with the media. He once referred to his name as a “tremendous asset” and told people it brought him “automatic acceptance.”

“Joe Biden needs to recognize it’s a problem,” a former chief White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, told Politico last year. “You can’t control your brothers. You can’t control your grown son. But you can put some firewalls in place in your own office.”

Valerie Biden – Joe Biden’s sister

During his years in the Senate, Biden’s family benefited financially in other ways as he leveraged political power. Joe’s sister Valerie ran all of his Senate campaigns, as well as his presidential runs in 1988 and 2008.

But she was also a senior partner in a political messaging firm named Joe Slade White & Company; the only two executives listed at the firm were Joe Slade White and Valerie.

The firm received large fees from the Biden campaigns that Valerie was running. Two and a half million dollars in consulting fees flowed to her firm from Citizens for Biden and Biden For President Inc. during the 2008 presidential bid alone.

Joe Slade White & Company worked for Biden campaigns over eighteen years.

Peter Schweizer, author of the new book ‘Profiles in Corruption,’ offers a deep dive into the private finances and secrets deals of some of America’s top political leaders.

Hunter Biden is “just the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to examining corruption within the Biden family during the time that Joe Biden was vice president, investigative reporter and author Peter Schweizer said Tuesday.

Appearing on “Fox & Friends,” Schweizer said that in his new book, “Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite,” the Bidens — who he reports benefitted from having a family member in the White House — are dubbed the “Biden Five.”

“There are five Biden family members that got very, very good deals while Joe Biden was vice president of the United States,” he said. “That’s Hunter, of course. There’s new material in the book about Hunter — about how he actually got taxpayer grants from the Obama administration. We have got his brother James. We have got his other brother Frank. We have got his sister Valerie. And, we’ve actually got his daughter Ashley, as well.

“All of whom cashed in while he was vice president of the United States,” said Schweizer.

The US increasingly believes that Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner on Wednesday, according to multiple US officials. The working theory is based on continuing analysis of data from satellites, radar and electronic data collected routinely by US military and intelligence.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he suspected the crash was not due to mechanical issues, indicating that “somebody could have made a mistake on the other side.” Asked during a White House event what he thought happened to the plane, Trump said, “Well, I have my suspicions.”

European security officials believe reports suggesting that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface to air missile in error are credible.

The timing of the crash has fueled speculation about its cause, coming just hours after Iran fired missiles at two Iraqi bases housing US troops in retaliation for the killing of its top general, also in Iraq. The exchange of attacks between Tehran and Washington on Iraqi soil was a dramatic escalation of tensions between the adversaries, and is raising fears of another proxy war in the Middle East.

The head of Iran’s Civil Aviation Authority is questioning the US allegation. Speaking to CNN, Ali Abedzadeh said, “If a rocket or missile hits a plane, it will free fall.”

“I don’t want to say that because other people have their suspicions,” Trump said, but added, “Somebody could have made a mistake on the other side … not our system. It has nothing to do with us.” “It was flying in a pretty rough neighborhood. They could’ve made a mistake. Some people say it was mechanical. I personally don’t think that’s even a question.”

Asked if he thought it was downed by accident, Trump said, “I don’t know. I really don’t know … that’s up to them. At some point they’ll release the black box.”

“Ideally they’d give it to Boeing,” he said, but said giving it to France or “some other country” would be fine, too.
“Something very terrible happened, very devastating,” he concluded.

One possibility being considered is that an Iranian missile unit saw something on their radar, thought they were under attack and fired.

The Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) flight PS752 came down just minutes after takeoff from Tehran on Wednesday local time, killing all 176 people on board, including dozens of Iranians and Canadians. The Boeing 737-800 was headed for Kiev, where 138 passengers were expected to take a connecting flight to Canada. Ukrainians, Swedes, Afghans, Germans and British nationals were also aboard.

Investigation underway!

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization head, Ali Abedzadeh, said it would not hand the flight data recorders to Boeing or the United States after they were found on Wednesday.
One of the officials said the US is working closely with the Canadians on the intelligence.

Ukrainian officials on Thursday were considering terrorism, a missile strike and catastrophic engine failure as potential causes for the crash, as aviation authorities in Tehran said the jetliner was on fire before it came down.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defense council chief, Oleksiy Danilov, said a meeting was taking place with Iranian authorities, where various causes behind the crash were “being studied,” including a theory that the plane was hit by an anti-aircraft missile, according to a statement on Facebook.

Conflicting claims about potential causes for the disaster began hours after the crash, when Iranian state media blamed technical issues and Ukraine ruled out rocket attacks. Within hours on Wednesday, officials in both countries had walked back those initial statements.

An initial report by the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization on the crash cites witnesses as saying the airliner was on fire while in the air and changed directions after a problem, turning back toward the airport. People on other aircraft at higher altitudes also saw the flames, Iranian officials say. Images of the wreckage show the plane torn to piece, its parts charred and strewn across a field.

This story is breaking and will be updated on this site.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s acknowledgement that it shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing 176 people, raises new challenges for the Islamic Republic both externally amid tensions with the U.S. and internally as it deals with growing discontent from its people.

The country demonstrated its incompetence and dishonesty by having its air-crash investigators, government officials and diplomats deny for days that a missile downed the flight, though a commander said Saturday that he had raised that possibility to his superiors as early as Wednesday, the day of the crash.

While its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard took responsibility, the same commander claimed it warned Tehran to close off its airspace amid fears of U.S. retaliation over Iran launching ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases housing U.S. forces. That retaliation never came, but the worries proved to be enough to allegedly scare a missile battery into opening fire on the Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines.

Wider tensions between Iran and the U.S., inflamed after Iran’s top general was killed in Iraq by a U.S. drone strike Jan. 3, have for the moment calmed. However, President Donald Trump vowed to impose new sanctions on Tehran and on Friday, his administration targeted Iran’s metals industry, a major employer. Meanwhile, thousands of additional U.S. forces remain in the Mideast atop of the network of American bases surrounding Iran, despite Tehran’s demands the U.S. leave the region.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cast doubt on Iran’s claim that it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner on Wednesday.

DUBAI, Jan 11 (Reuters) – Iran’s religious rulers risk a legitimacy crisis as popular anger has boiled up at the way the state handled a passenger plane crash, which the military took three days to admit was caused by an Iranian missile fired in error.

Amid mounting public fury and international criticism, the belated admission of blame by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards has squandered the national unity seen after the killing of the country’s most influential commander in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Jan. 3.

Huge crowds had turned out on the streets of Iranian cities to mourn Soleimani’s death, chanting “Death to America”.

But since the Ukraine International Airlines plane crashed on Wednesday – an incident Canada and the United States said early on was due to an Iranian missile albeit fired by mistake – social media has been ablaze with criticism of the establishment. All 176 people on board the plane, en route from Tehran to Kiev, were killed.

That mood bodes ill for a parliamentary election in February, when Iran’s primitive religious rulers typically seek a high turnout to show their legitimacy even though the outcome will not change any major policy.

But instead they are now hearing more rumblings of discontent, after anti-government protests in November in which hundreds of people died.

“It is a very sensitive time for the establishment. They face a serious credibility problem. Not only did they conceal the truth, they also mismanaged the situation,” said a senior former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran’s backward clerics have swept aside challenges to their grip on power. But the kind of distrust between the rulers and the ruled that erupted in protests last year may now have deepened.

‘DEATH TO THE DICTATOR’

Video clips on Twitter showed protesters in Tehran on Saturday chanting “Death to the dictator,” a reference to Shia Religious Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Reuters could not independently verify the footage. It followed a welter of criticism in Iran.

Iran’s state news agency confirmed the protests.

The Guards issued an apology for shooting down the plane, saying air defenses were fired in error during a state of high alert. Iran had expected U.S reprisals after it retaliated for Soleimani’s killing by firing missiles at Iraqi bases where U.S. troops were stationed.

Iran’s supreme leader aging Shia Khamenei, may now find Iranians are not so keen to show their support.

BEDROCK SUPPORT

The dated clerical system in Iran has survived challenges in the pasts.

But Khamenei’s support, the ignorant and religious poor and lower middle classes were among the first on the street in November in protests sparked by a hike in gasoline prices – a particularly sensitive issue where many rely on cheap fuel.

Protesters’ demands swiftly turned more political, including calls for their rulers to go, before authorities cracked down.

Social media was flooded with angry comments from Iranians, many complaining that the authorities had spent more time denying they were to blame for the plane crash than sympathising with victims’ families.

Alongside the parliamentary vote, the elections on Feb. 21 will also choose members of the Assembly of Experts, an out-of-touch Islamic clerical body that in future will be responsible for selecting a successor to 80-year-old doddering Khamenei.

Khamenei, who has no term limit, has been in office since the death in 1989 of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Islamic Shia fanatic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Trump Fights with Sanctions, not with Arms

The Trump administration warned Iraq that it risks losing access to a critical government bank account if Baghdad kicks out American.

The U.S. could shut down Iraq’s access to the country’s central bank account held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York!

Iraq, like other countries, maintains government accounts at the New York Fed as an important part of managing the country’s finances, including revenue from oil sales. Loss of access to the accounts could restrict Iraq’s use of that revenue, creating a huge cash problem in Iraq’s financial system. It is surprising that this hasn’t been done already. Why does America allow foreigners to use our banks.

Iraqi Parliament Votes to Expel U.S. Troops

Nevertheless. Abdul-Mahdi moved ahead with those plans this week, requesting the U.S. agree to talks to plan the safe withdrawal of American troops, according to an Iraqi description of a Thursday call with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Why don’t we shut down our banks to Iran and pull out the troops.?

The warning regarding the Iraqi central bank account was conveyed to Iraq’s prime minister in a call on Wednesday, according to an official in his office, that also touched on the overall military, political and financial partnership between the two countries.

Spokesmen for the Iraqi prime minister, its central bank and its embassy in Washington didn’t respond to requests for comment. The U.S. State and Treasury Departments and the Federal Reserve Board declined to comment.

The Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which can freeze accounts under U.S. sanctions law or if it has reasonable suspicion the funds could violate U.S. law, said it doesn’t comment on specific account holders.

Mr. Abdul-Mahdi has said the departure of U.S. troops is the only way to avoid conflict in Iraq because the U.S. doesn’t trust the country’s security forces to protect its troops.

But there are questions over his authority to evict them, given his status as a caretaker prime minister. Among other potential obstacles are Kurdish and most Sunni leaders, who boycotted the session at which parliamentarians voted on the troop expulsion. The vote is the result of have the Iran-following Shia’s in the Iraqi government.

During the parliamentary debate, the speaker, a Sunni, urged Shiite lawmakers to be mindful of the potential backlash: “One of the steps the international community could take is to stop financial transactions with Iraq, and we would be unable to fulfill our commitments to our citizens at any moment,” Mohammed al-Halboosi said, based on a video of the proceedings.

The financial threat isn’t theoretical: The country’s financial system was squeezed in 2015 when the U.S. suspended access for several weeks to the central bank’s account at the New York Fed over concerns the cash was filtering through a loosely regulated market into Iranian banks and to the Islamic State extremist group.
Al Asad air base in Iraq, housing U.S. troops, was targeted Tuesday by missiles fired from Iran, the Pentagon said. Photo: Nasser Nasser/Associated Press

“The U.S. Fed basically has a stranglehold on the entire [Iraqi] economy,” said Shwan Taha, chairman of Iraqi investment bank Rabee Securities.

The prospect of sanctions has unsettled ordinary Iraqis, for whom memories of living under a United Nations embargo during the 1990s are still fresh. Pro-Iranian and other Shiite factions leading the charge to oust U.S. forces from Iraq have sought to reassure the public by telling them Iraq could pivot to China.

An adviser to the prime minister, Abd al-Hassanein al-Hanein, said that while the threat of sanctions was a concern, he did not expect the U.S. to go through with it. “If the U.S. does that, it will lose Iraq forever,” he said.

Besides the financial impact, many politicians, including some Shiites, worry that a U.S. withdrawal would allow Islamic State to re-emerge as a major threat. They also view the U.S. as a necessary counterweight to Iran, which has tightened its grip on the Iraqi government during Mr. Abdul-Mahdi’s premiership.

The U.S. is concerned that an exodus of American forces could allow U.S. currency to be redirected to Iranian accounts and to other adversaries, according to people familiar with the matter.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi asked the U.S. to send representatives to put in place a mechanism for the withdrawal of troops from the country. Photo: Burhan Ozbilici/Associated Press

The Trump administration’s sanctions campaign against Iran has squeezed the flow of U.S. dollars to the government in Tehran over the past year. The American dollar, the most traded currency in the world, is used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to pay its foreign proxies fighting against the U.S. and its allies in the region, including in Iraq, U.S. officials say.

Iranian-owned or controlled foreign exchange houses and banks in Iraq have been an important source of funding for Iran and its proxies active in the country, including those fighting against U.S. forces, U.S. officials say.

The New York Fed provides banking and other financial services for around 250 central banks, governments and other foreign official institutions, such as the account owned by Bangladesh from which North Korean agents were able to steal $81 million in 2016, U.S. officials have said.

When Iraq needs hard currency, its central bank can request a shipment of bills that it then distributes into the financial system through banks and currency exchange houses. While the country’s official currency is the dinar, U.S. dollars are commonly used.

The New York Fed doesn’t publicly disclose how much money it currently holds for Iraq’s central bank. But according to the Central Bank of Iraq’s most recent financial statement, at the end of 2018, the Fed held nearly $3 billion in overnight deposits. Shame on us for letting this happen!

Kimia Alizadeh, has announced that she’s permanently left her country for Europe.

“Let me start with a greeting, a farewell or condolences,” the 21-year-old wrote in an Instagram post explaining why she was defecting. “I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who they have been playing with for years.”

“They took me wherever they wanted. I wore whatever they said. Every sentence they ordered me to say, I repeated. Whenever they saw fit, they exploited me,” she wrote, adding that credit for her success always went to those in charge.

“I wasn’t important to them. None of us mattered to them, we were tools,” Alizadeh added, explaining that while the regime celebrated her medals, it criticized the sport she had chosen: “The virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs!”
Reports of her defection first surfaced Thursday, with some Iranians suggesting she had left for the Netherlands. It was unclear from her post to what country Alizadeh had gone.

Iran arrests UK ambassador

Rob Macaire, who has been Britain’s envoy to the Islamic republic since March 2018, was arrested as he stopped at a barber shop for a haircut after attending a vigil for the victims of a Ukrainian jetliner that crashed in Tehran last week, the BBC reported.

Macaire left the vigil after it became a demonstration but was later accused by Iranian authorities of helping to incite the anti-government protest.

He was released after three hours but the arrest infuriated the British government.

“The arrest of our Ambassador in Tehran without grounds or explanation is a flagrant violation of international law,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement.

“The Iranian government is at a cross-roads moment. It can continue its march towards pariah status with all the political and economic isolation that entails, or take steps to deescalate tensions and engage in a diplomatic path forwards.”

In a Twitter message, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus called Macaire’s arrest a violation of the Vienna Convention, which she said the Iranian regime “has a notorious history of violating.”

In 2016, Hillary Clinton, then presidential candidate, hired an ex-intelligence officer and foreign national, British subject Christopher Steele, to use Russian sources to find dirt on her then political opponent Donald Trump.

The public would take years to learn about the funding sources of Steele, because Clinton camouflaged her role through three firewalls: the Democratic National Committee; the Perkins-Coie legal firm; and Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS opposition-research firm.

Steele had collected rumor and gossip from mostly Russian sources in an effort to tar Trump as a Russian colluder and asset. We know now that his sources were either bogus or deliberately warped by Steele himself.

Almost everything in the Dossier was unverified and later was proved fanciful. Yet with the help of high Obama administration and elected officials, the Dossier’s gossip and rumor were leaked throughout the top echelons of Washington politics and the media. Its lies spread because its chief message — Donald J. Trump was a fool, dangerous, should never be elected, and once elected had no business as president — was exactly what the establishment wished to hear and promote to the American public with the help of the press.

The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, after an exhaustive study, found that the Steele Dossier not just unverifiable but unethically and unprofessionally used successfully to delude federal judges to issue warrants to surveil an American citizen.

Horowitz simply confirmed that Steele was both a pathological liar and an inveterate hater of Donald Trump who acted to ensure that Trump would not be president. Although the aging and inept special counsel Robert Mueller, in sworn testimony before Congress, seemed to have amnesia about the Steele Dossier and its chief purveyor Fusion GPS, his own investigation was de facto repudiation of the entire Steele Dossier in its conclusion that Donald Trump did not engage in collusion with the Russians to warp the 2016 election.

As a result, all who trafficked in the Dossier as if it were factual and disinterested have lost their credibility. Many are now seeing their careers demolished and in ruins. Here is a small sampling of reputations that were marred or destroyed.

Rachel Maddow: Many of her 2016–19 evening cable news commentaries focused on the supposed dangers that candidate and then president Trump posed to the republic. She cited the Steele Dossier chapter and verse as factual in making her arguments that Trump was dishonest and amoral and therefore an illegitimate president who should be removed. It will be difficut for any audience to take Maddow’s on-air assertions seriously in the future. She rose to high ratings promoting the Dossier, and she will likely suffer the consequences in reverse.

James Comey and the FBI. It is no exaggeration that James Comey, the former director of the FBI, knew intimately of the Dossier, approved its use to spy on American citizens and to launch an investigation into Donald Trump’s purported Russian connection, and then lied about both the Dossier’s authenticity and his own agency’s use of its author Christopher Steele, who was highly paid informant for the FBI.

More than a dozen top FBI agents, investigators, and lawyers who worked for Comey have now either been fired, disgraced, reassigned, demoted, or have quit or have abruptly retired. The common denominator to all their fates is that in some fashion they either leaked false information to the media (so far unpunishe, knowingly broke the law, lied to federal investigators, altered documents, deluded federal judges, or were afraid that something they had done would surface. Trace the origins of such misbehavior, and at its font will be the sensational Steele Dossier and the nearly religious belief that it either was true or should be true or somehow could be made to be true.

John McCain: The late Senator John McCain. McCain was tipped off about the Dossier by a British intelligence official and Steele’s confidant. McCain, who had engaged in a well-publicized feud with Trump, almost immediately met with federal officials and sent his former associate David Kramer to the UK to talk with Steele. McCain himself then gave the Dossier to FBI Director Comey. In McCain’s final memoir, he and his coauthor were defiant about the senator’s role in spreading the unsubstantiated gossip around Washington: “I would do it again. Anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell.” It was a misleading and unfortunate comment by McCain.

James Clapper and John Brennan: James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence under Barack Obama, and John Brennan, the former CIA director, both previously had lied under oath to Congress. Both then apologized, and their illegal behaviors were excused – unfortunately without legal consequences. But both once again have not told the truth about their own knowledge of the Steele Dossier, its unverified and mostly false information, and the role they both played in circulating and promulgating the Dossier to the media and high government officials. That both directors were deeply involved in spreading the Dossier around Washington, leaking its comments, and then denying their roles while they worked as paid television commentators on CNN and MSNBC only ensured the rapid erosion of their beltway careers and reputations. And both still may have a rendezvous with federal prosecutors in regard to the Dossier.

FISA Court: The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. A number of inept FISA court federal judges approved FBI and DOJ requests to surveille Carter Page both before and after the 2016 presidential election, supposedly as a way to learn of Trump-Russia collusion.

None of the judges seriously probed government lawyers about the Dossier before their court. Although they were told in a footnote that it was a product of opposition research, apparently none asked the nature of such sponsorship.

Yet if a judge is apprised that the evidence before him to support a federal surveillance warrant is based on political opposition research, would it not be prudent to ask attorneys to name who had paid the Dossier’s author? Worse still, in winter and late spring 2018, Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) had twice warned the eleven-justice FISA court that the Steele Dossier was unreliable and had not been a sound basis to authorize surveilling an American citizen. Nunes and his House colleagues were essentially ignored and dismissed by the court.

It was only after the issuance of the Horowitz report that the FISA court’s presiding justice, Rosemary Collyer, blasted the FBI for deluding her court. Fairly or not, the impression remains that FISA judges either were incompetent or simply did not wish to learn evidence that might have discredited their decision to allow the FBI to surveille a former Trump official, as part of a larger effort to discredit Donald Trump. And like it or not, the entire reputation of the FISA court is now in shreds, both for being so easily or willingly fooled, and for so opportunistically and belatedly criticizing those who deluded them.

There is a movement to do away with the FISA court as there is no responder in the case, only an accuser. This is called an ex parte court appearance which means a legal proceeding brought by one party in the absence of and without representation of or notification to the other party. Since other Americans were excluded from pleading their side of the story, the FISA court relied only on their accuser, the FBI. This is totally wrong in such cases and there is a movement to abolish the FISA court.

Hillary Clinton: There are strict federal election laws governing the role of foreign nationals and their U.S. handlers interfering in an American election. The public became more aware of such statutes paradoxically because Hillary Clinton, almost immediately after losing the November 2016 election, claimed that she was defeated only because Donald Trump had colluded with Russians. Ironically, the origins of that claim were the Steele Dossier, which Clinton herself had paid for and then hidden her sponsorship. In other words, while the Dossier swept through the media, helped to prime FISA warrants, played a key part in launching FBI investigations, and ultimately kick-started the Robert Mueller special-counsel investigation, Hillary Clinton remained immune from scrutiny. Think of the paradox: While Clinton pounded president Trump for supposedly using Russians to win an election, she herself had used fraudulent Russian sources to obtain political advantage by smearing her opponent, apparently in the expectation that she would win the election and her modus operandi would never be discovered, or, even if Steele’s work were publicized and thus discredited, her own fingerprints would never appear — or no one would dare to question President Clinton.

Adam Schiff: Adam Schiff’s reputation hit rock bottom in recent years. He lied about his relationship to the so-called whistleblower. His minority-report memo was discredited by Inspector General Horowitz. He read a bogus version of the Trump-Ukraine phone call into the congressional record, and when called out, begged off by claiming it was merely “parody.” And he began the impeachment inquiry in a basement without either transparency or bipartisan rules of cross-examination and disclosure. But Schiff’s two-year insistence that Steele’s research was reliable and that it nonetheless did not provide the chief basis for FISA warrants was demonstrably untrue. (How paradoxical that Steele’s promoters both defended the Dossier and yet denied that it was pivotal.) Schiff may remain a hero to the Never Trump fringe for his any-means-necessary efforts to destroy Trump, but even the media now distrust him. His own party will come to see him as a transiently useful dishonest prevaricator whose utility is already waning.

In a rare public order Tuesday, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC] strongly criticized the FBI over its surveillance-application process, giving the bureau until Jan. 10 to come up with solutions, in the wake of findings from Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz.

The order, from the court’s presiding judge Rosemary M. Collyer, came just a week after the release of Horowitz’s withering report about the wiretapping of Carter Page, a former campaign adviser to President Trump.

“The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Office of Inspector General] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above,” Collyer wrote in her four-page order. “The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.”

This was revealed months ago it was revealed that the Justice Department inspector general has determined the three Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant extensions against onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page were illegally obtained, attorney Joe diGenova said.

In an investigation that began last year, Inspector General Michael Horowitz is examining the Justice Department’s and FBI’s compliance with legal requirements as well as policies and procedures in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court related to Page as part of a larger counterintelligence probe into Trump’s campaign.

“They are doing that as a diversionary tactic away from the inevitable conclusions of the DOJ inspector general, Michael Horowitz, who, by the way, we have learned has concluded that the final three FISA extensions were illegally obtained,” diGenova said on Fox Business. “The only question now is whether or not the first FISA was illegally obtained.”

He pointed to memos, obtained by conservative group Citizens United through open-records litigation, that suggest the FBI might have misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in the first warrant application about an unverified dossier.

Horowitz “apparently, as a result of those disclosures … which he was unaware of — the bureau hid those memos from Horowitz — as a result of that they’re doing additional work on the first FISA. It may be that all four FISAs will have been obtained illegally,” diGenova said.

The dossier, compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, contained salacious and unverified claims about Trump’s ties to Russia. It was used by the FBI illegaly to obtain the authority to wiretap Page, an American who had suspicious connections to the Russians. The first warrant application was submitted in October 2016, after which there were three renewals at three-month intervals, including in January, April, and June 2017.

The memos obtained by Citizens United, and shared with the Washington Examiner, show Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11 and admitted he was encouraged by a client to get his research out before the 2016 election, signaling a possible political motivation. The timing of the meeting is notable, as it was 10 days before the FBI used Steele’s unverified dossier to obtain the original warrant to wiretap Page.

Senate and House investigators told The Hill they too were unaware of the documents, which were given to and redacted by the FBI, and one member of Congress referred the memos to the Justice Department inspector general. “They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it,” House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said.

A memo from the House Intelligence Committee in February 2018 alleged Steele was paid over $160,000 by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and opposition research group Fusion GPS to “obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.” The memo also said the FBI never informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of the dossier’s Democratic benefactors or Steele’s anti-Trump bias when it applied to spy on Page, who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller over his interactions with Russians but was never charged.

In a rebuttal to the House Intelligence GOP memo, Democrats falsely argued the Justice Department and FBI “met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA’s probable cause requirement.”

In recent days top former officials at the FBI have defended their handling of the warrant applications. Former FBI Director James Comey said during a CNN town hall on Thursday that “the most important part” of the dossier was on “Russians coming for the American election,” which he asserted was “consistent with our other intelligence” and “true.” Former FBI General Counsel James Baker, who acknowledged he “wanted the burden on me to a significant degree” in preparing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act application paperwork, said it would have been “gratuitous” to name the U.S. persons — the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC — in the documents.

Both Comey and Baker said they are confident the bureau did nothing wrong in obtaining the warrants, although Baker admitted the inspector general makes him “nervous.” Now, even Comey admits that he was wrong.

DiGenova appeared on Fox Business with his wife and legal partner Victoria Toensing. She accused FBI Director Christopher Wray of “hiding” Comey’s “sins.” This has now proved to be true.

DiGenova served as an independent counsel in the 1990s for a case on former President Bill Clinton’s passport before he was elected. Last year, it was announced diGenova and Toensing were joining Trump’s legal team for the federal Russia investigation, but that plan was nixed within days.

Elizabeth Warren and the ex-U.S. Marine

In a bizarre press conference held on the porch footsteps of a residential neighborhood, Whelly said he was with 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, an infantry unit out of Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. The U.S. Marine Corps confirmed to Newsweek on Friday that Whelly is a ex-Marine and served with the infantry unit in Hawaii as a machine gunner; However, the former lance corporal does not have any overseas deployments as, apparently, had been claimed.

Whelly claimed that last year, Warren had hired him via the male escort agency Cowboys4Angels and engaged in a steamy extramarital affair with him.

There was, however, one verifiable fact Cowboys4Angels is, in fact, a real “elite male companion” agency, which is best known for being featured on the Showtime series Gigolos.

“My service in Afghanistan, it was very….early in my Marine Corps time [when I was] just getting to my unit,” said Whelly. “I was stationed in Hawaii. 1/3 [1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment]. It’s on Wikipedia but in 2012 we were stationed in Afghanistan…deployed to Afghanistan.”

However, Whelly could not have served in Afghanistan in 2012, according to his releasable biographical data provided to Newsweek from Manpower and Reserve Affairs, the Marine Corps’ division which manages the personnel files for both active duty and reserve forces. The dates of service listed for Whelly begin on Aug. 25, 2014 and end on May 11, 2016.

Defense Department awards commonly seen among U.S. Marines with service in Afghanistan include the Afghanistan Campaign Medal and the Non-Article 5 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, International Security Assistance Force Medal, known as the NATO ISAF Medal.

However, the only awards listed for the ex-Marine is the National Defense Service Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

During the press conference when asked about receiving the Purple Heart amid shouts of “stolen valor,” Whelly said, “I do not have a Purple Heart, even if you’re wounded you have to put in for a Purple Heart.”

Contacted by Newsweek on Friday, Wohl said he could not comment on Whelly’s military record without speaking to him first. Attempts to reach Whelly were unsuccessful on Friday.

Newsweek reached out to Warren’s campaign for comment on Friday but no reply was returned before publication.

And what about Warren’s husband, Bruce Mann?

Warren had recently separated from her first husband Jim Warren with whom she was married for ten years, but fell fast for Mann.

It’s hardly surprising that they first crossed paths in a professional setting, given that they’re both law professors. After working at several different universities, Mann ended up alongside Warren at Harvard Law School, where he teaches.

She proposed to him.In a 2016 post on Facebook, Warren told the story of their engagement. “I proposed to Bruce in a classroom,” she wrote. “It was the first time I’d seen him teach, and I was already in love with him, but watching him teach let me see one more thing about him—and that was it.”

When he asked her what she thought about the class, she quickly replied, “What can I say? Will you marry me?”

Wow!

And there is more – more from Warren and fellow liars!

Elizabeth Warren has a moving sob-story about being fired from a teaching job because she was pregnant, a story that perfectly complements her political narrative that she is the tribune and champion of those who have been treated unfairly by the powerful.

Joe Biden has a moving — and horrifying — story about his wife and daughter being killed by a drunk driver, a story that similarly could not have been designed more perfectly to bolster his political image as a man who can be counted on to soldier on in the face of adversity.

Both stories are lies.

Elizabeth Warren has long pretended to be a person of color — a “woman of color,” the Harvard law faculty called her.

Fiction, yes. Deployed, as we are always told when these lies are exposed as lies, in the service of a larger truth, a truth of which such habitual and irredeemable liars as Warren, Biden, Smollett and Lena Dunham, and the so-called journalists of Rolling Stone, and the perpetrators of a thousand phony campus hate-crime hoaxes — are the appointed apostles.

“Does anybody seriously believe it was not as everyday as sunrise that employers made pregnant women leave their jobs 50 years ago?” CNBC’s John Harwood demanded in defense of Warren.

The minutes of the local school-board meeting quite clearly document that Warren was offered a contract for further employment, which she declined. She was forthright in her account of the episode at earlier points in her life. She seems to have suddenly remembered the discrimination sometime between when she began advertising herself to the Ivy League as a Cherokee and the day when the Cherokee finally shamed her into knocking it off.

And Joe Biden? Similarly, people are killed by drunk drivers every day in this country. Joe Biden’s wife and daughter were not among them, in spite of his libelous claims that they lost their lives in an accident involving an irresponsible truck driver who, as Biden put it, “drank his lunch.” The man who oversaw that investigation, Delaware Superior Court judge Jerome O. Herlihy, repeatedly has confirmed that there is no evidence alcohol was involved. The survivors of the driver, who has since passed away, have publicly asked Biden to stop telling this lie and besmirching the memory of their father. Investigators at the time determined that the accident was not even the other driver’s fault — Mrs. Biden seems to have driven accidentally into the path of the truck.

Warren’s and Biden’s fictions have in common that they are lies that have been put into the service of the campaign against Donald Trump in 2020.

SUBJECT: PARTICIPANTS:

(C) Telephone Conversation with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine

(S/NF) The President: Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, somebody who wasn’t given much of a chance, and you ended up winning easily. It’s a fantastic achievement. Congratulations.

( J;’HP’President Zelenskyy: You are absolutely right Mr. President. We did win big and we worked hard for this. We worked a lot but I would like to confess to you hat I had n opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example for our elections and- yes it is true that these were unique elections. We were in a unique situation that we were able to

CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation (TELCON) is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document. records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty Officers and NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation.

The word “inaudible” is used to ind cate portions of a cbnversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.

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achieve a unique success. I’m able to tell you the following; the first time, you called me to congratulate me when I won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.

{-‘/Mfi’)The President: (laughter] That’s a very good idea. I think your country is very happy about that.

(S/MF)P.cesident Zelenskyy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government. You are a great teacher for us and in that.

(-‘;’HF’The President: Well it’s very nice of you to say that. I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time. Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk and I think it’s something that you should really ask them about. When I was speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she doesn’t do anything. A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it’s something you want to look at but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.

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(:3/Hfil)PresidentZelenskyy: Yes you are absolutely right. Not_ only 100%, but actually 1000% and I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela Merkel and I did meet with her. I also met and talked with Macron and I told them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though logically, the European Union should be our biggest· partner but technically the United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union and I’m very grateful to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine. Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

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to/HF’The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our cou try has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.

( 2!l; 1HP’ PresidentZelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr.

Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. G1uliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but fr ends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have. friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition· to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.

{:’. /HF)The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York Ci.ty, a great mayor, and I would like him to

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call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney· General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know thal. The ot er thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Eiden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.

Eiden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds· horrible to me.

(S/HF) President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all I understand and I’m knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation., specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can. provide to us, it would be vet:y helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.

(:3/HF!The President: Well, she’s going to go through some things. I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I’m sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your eco omy .is going to get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets.

It’s a great country. I have many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.

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(!!/HF) President Zelenskyy: I would like to tell you that I also have quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United States. Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump

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Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the.other hand, I also want to ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy independence. I believe we can be very successful and cooperating on energy independence with United States. We are

already working on cooperation. We are buying American oil but I am very hopeful for a future meeting. We will have more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities and get to know each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support

W,’NPThe President: Good. Well, thank you very much and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you. Whenever you would like ·tQ come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us a date and we’ll work that out. I look forward to seeing you.

.w,,nm · PresidentZelenskyy: Thank you very much. I would be·very happy to come and would be happy to meet with you pers·onally and get to know you better. I am looking forward to our meeting and I also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the city of Kyiv which is a beautiful city. We have a·beautiful country which would welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September 1 we will be in Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that, it might be a very good idea for you to travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine or we can take your _ plane, which is probably much better than mine.

( /MF)‘ThePresident: Okay, we can work that out. I look forward to seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be there at that time.

(a;’MF)PresidentZelenskyy: Thank you very much Mr. President.

(B;’HP)ThePresident: Congratulations on a fantastic job you’ve done. The whole world was watching. I’m not sure it was so much of an upset but congratulations.-

President Trump’s former strategist vows to fight the Italian government’s decision to evict his academy from the Monastery of Trisulti.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s quest to build a school for the far right in Italy has hit a snag thanks to the country’s culture ministry, kinda. On Friday, the ministry said it would summarily Bannon and his academy from the 800-year-old mountaintop monastery where he had foolishly (for Italy) planned to hold masterclasses for leaders and activists.

Christened by Bannon as the high-sounding Academy for the Judeo-Christian West, the institute was designed to accommodate 250 to 300 students at a time. The curriculum, which Bannon was developing himself, would be focused on defending the “Judeo-Christian tradition” in politics and the media against what he claims is growing “secularist intolerance.” Eleven, count’em, cardinals are listed on its board of advisors.

“Political opinions have nothing to do with [this],” a representative for the ministry of culture, Gianluca Vacca, said in a questionable statement. “We are interested in respecting the law and protecting the national cultural heritage.” Yeah, sure, but behind the decision, however, is alleged to be ultra rightest Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini who is (allegedly again) insanely jealous of Bannon.

In 2017, Bannon joined forces with Benjamin Harnwell, the enigmatic British-born director of the Catholic conservative Dignitatis Humanae Institute (another high-sounding name). They won a bid to lease part of the Monastery of Trisulti, which dates back to the early 13th century. The lease, which was finalized in January, granted the building to the duo for 19 years in exchange for annual rent of $112,000.

In April, the head of Italy’s European Union ally, leftist Democratic Party, Nicola Zingaretti, wrote to the culture minister that “Trisulti has been a place of peace, prayer, and meditation for eight centuries” and that it “is not compatible with the training activities of nationalist groups who often have openly xenophobic positions.”

Now, Italian officials are evicting Bannon from the former monastery, claiming that the he has not met the contractual obligations of the lease, including protecting and maintaining the historic property. A spokesperson for the ministry expressed doubts that the lease was legitimate in the first place, explaining that because the monastery is listed as a national monument, any lease-holder must have demonstrated five years of experience caring for a landmark of cultural significance.

Bannon, in Italy – a country of losers rather than winners, is also foolishly deciding to become one of them and in no mood to leave. “The fight for Trisulti is a microcosm of the fight for the Judeo-Christian West,” he declared in, once again, an “high-sounding,” statement.

Lots of luck on that one, Steve. You would do better by walking around with the mass of tourists in Rome seeking over-priced brand-name products.

A tariff may be described as a sales or consumption tax the consumer pays, but tariffs are also a discretionary and an optional tax.

If an American chooses not to purchase Chinese goods and instead buy comparable goods in the USA, then that person does not pay the tariff.

In the case of China, China loses the sale. This is why Beijing, which runs $350 billion to $400 billion in annual trade surpluses at our expense is howling loudest. Should Donald Trump impose that 25% tariff on all $500 billion in Chinese exports to the USA, it would cripple China’s economy. Factories seeking assured access to the U.S. market would be devastated.

This is why tariffs were the taxes that made America great and they will make America even greater now. They were the taxes relied upon by the first and greatest of our early statesmen, before the coming of the globalists like Woodrow Wilson and FDR.

Tariffs, to protect manufacturers and jobs, were the Republican Party’s path to power and prosperity in the 19th and 20th centuries, before the rise of the Rockefeller Eastern liberal establishment and its embrace of the British-bred heresy of unfettered free trade.

The Tariff Act of 1789 was enacted with the declared purpose, “the encouragement and protection of manufactures.” It was the second act passed by the first Congress led by Speaker James Madison. It was crafted by Alexander Hamilton and signed by President Washington.

After the War of 1812, President Madison, backed by Henry Clay and John Calhoun and ex-Presidents Jefferson and Adams, enacted the Tariff of 1816 to price British textiles out of competition, so Americans would build the new factories and capture the booming U.S. market. It worked.

Tariffs financed Mr. Lincoln’s War. The Tariff of 1890 bears the name of Ohio Congressman and future President William McKinley, who said that a foreign manufacturer “has no right or claim to equality with our own. … He pays no taxes. He performs no civil duties.”

On March 30, 2019 (UPI), at a crowded downtown intersection less than a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border, Democrat Beto O’Rourke brought his presidential campaign to his native El Paso, Texas, for the first time.

“Welcome to the beautiful, magical, safe and secure U.S.-Mexico border,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said as she introduced candidate O’Rourke. “El Paso is the Ellis Island of the border and in Beto O’Rourke we are sending the nation our best.”

“We are safe because we are a city of immigrants and asylum seekers,” O’Rourke said in a stump speech that lasted 30 minutes. “El Paso represents America at its best.” President Donald Trump’s El Paso visit is a great opportunity to point out that the west Texas city is a rats’ nest of law enforcement corruption, a major smuggling route into the U.S. for Mexican drugs, illegal immigrants, and Islamic terrorists and the headquarters of a sophisticated narco-terror ring operated by two of the FBI’s most wanted. While local officials promote it as one of America’s safest cities, Judicial Watch has exposed in a years-long investigation the disturbing reality gripping the municipality that sits along the Rio Grande across famously violent Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

Beto O’Rourke was dead wrong about El Paso – either he is ignorant or just lying to get votes. Even worse, his statements put the residents of El Paso, and the United States, in danger.

Contrary to the dangerous misinformation of T Beto O’Rourke, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says El Paso is a major hub for Mexican opioids and methamphetamine enroute to the rest of the United States. Recently, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released figures showing that the El Paso sector had an astounding 1,588% increase in illegal immigrant apprehensions during the first month of 2019 compared to the first month of 2018.

Drugs and Central Americans aren’t the only things being smuggled in through El Paso. Islamic terrorists are also making it into the U.S. with the help of Mexican drug cartels. Judicial Watch exposed an operation in which Mexican drug cartels smuggle foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small rural town near El Paso by using remote farm roads—rather than interstates—to elude the Border Patrol and other law enforcement barriers. The foreigners are classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) and are transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road – Highway 20. Once in the U.S., the SIAs wait for pick-up in the area’s sand hills just across Highway 20.

Judicial Watch also broke a story about an ISIS training cell just a few miles from El Paso in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Law enforcement and intelligence sources on both sides of the border confirm that cartel-backed “coyotes” help smuggle ISIS terrorists through the desert and into the U.S. between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. The areas are targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces and the relative safe-havens the terrain provides for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling. In the aftermath of Judicial Watch’s story about Islamic terrorists operating in Juárez, Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman that’s holding an anti-Trump rally during the president’s event at the El Paso County Coliseum, tried to silence federal law enforcement sources. O’Rourke, who represented El Paso in the House before a failed Senate bid, has long declared that Juárez is safe even as the notoriously violent region adjacent to his district is renowned for beheadings, gunfights, kidnappings and drug trafficking. Juárez is among the world’s most dangerous cities and the most dangerous place in the western hemisphere.

Beto O’Rourke is OK with spreading false information to get votes even if it gets someone killed.